The present invention relates to bar code reading devices and particularly to bar code reading systems having a plurality of remote bar code reading stations. More particularly, the present invention concerns a system of satellite bar code reading stations having no keyboard or display.
The relevant art known to the inventor includes the Intermec satellite wand reading systems manufactured by Interface Mechanisms, Inc., of Lynnwood, Washington. These systems have remote scanning wand stations which operate on a "party line" basis with a single bar code reader. The system uses only tone-coded prompting with limited information transfer to the operator. Each of the wand stations has a light indicating a busy line when another is in use and a speaker solely for emitting an audible beep for each valid scan by the wand. These stations may be interconnected in a chain or star configuration. The Intermec systems have no keyboard or character display at the remote stations.
Related art also includes daisy chained data entry terminals. Some art has data entry devices with voice synthesis features. Certain art, Ootsuka U.S. Pat. No. 4,481,599, has voice synthesis prompting to provide the operator guidance particularly in conjunction with operation of an electronic cash register.